The Da Nang People's Committee appointed Vo Cong Chanh to be director of the Internal Affairs Department cum chairman of Hoang Sa District People’s Committee on Monday.

Chanh, 43, will replace Dang Cong Ngu, who has reached retirement age. He is a native of Quang Nam Province’s Phu Ninh District.

Speaking to the media after the announcement, Chanh said: “I will do my best to work with my compatriots at home and abroad to continue the fight for Hoang Sa's sovereignty like my predecessor.”

In 1974, taking advantage of the withdrawal of the American troops from the Vietnam War, China invaded the Paracel, which Vietnam calls Hoang Sa, Islands. A brief but bloody naval battle with the forces of the then US-backed Republic of Vietnam ensued.

Vietnam's behemoth northern neighbor has illegally occupied the islands ever since. But a post-1975 united Vietnam has never relinquished its ownership of the Paracel Islands and continues to keep military bases and other facilities on the Spratly Islands.

On his last day in the position on Sunday, Ngu, the outgoing mayor of Hoang Sa, said he strongly opposed China’s dispatch of a deep sea drilling rig into Vietnam’s waters.

It was a perverse and illegal action, he said.

Vietnam established the Hoang Sa District government on February 4, 1982 to govern the Spratly archipelago in the East Sea, international known as the South China Sea.

On January 1, 1997, the district became a part of Da Mang's municipal government after the city separated from Quang Nam and became a city reporting directly to the central government.

Ngu was appointed to be chairman of Hoang Sa District People’s Committee on April 21, 2009.